


The Longer Journey

by BoneyardGracie



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Aftermath of Violence, Canonical Character Death, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, M/M, autistic Hawke, character death in chapter 17
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-10
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 00:20:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 19,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5687353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoneyardGracie/pseuds/BoneyardGracie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tybalt Hawke's life is far more exciting than he thinks it has any right to be. Dragons, rock monsters and demons? Fine, okay, he'd rather do  this life thing without them but he can handle that. It's the social side that keeps on throwing him for a loop. And then there is Fenris. (Collection of non-chronological drabbles and responses to Tumblr prompts featuring Tybalt Hawke)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Looking at walls

**Author's Note:**

> Set during Act 1. Hawke and Fenris enjoy a quiet evening between friends at Corpse Estate.

Tybalt Hawke never looks Fenris in the eyes. He plays with a string of beads and looks at walls instead.

Fenris watches. He sees the way Hawke’s eyes never look into his, always over his shoulder, darting around and only ever briefly glancing over his face. At first, Fenris bristles at it. Does the mage think himself better than him? Does he thank that an escaped slave is not worthy of looking him in the face? But Fenris watches and sees the same, not just with him but with Aveline, Carver and even Leandra. It's not that, then. 

He asks, one night, caution worn away by wine and curiosity. Hawke’s fingers curl in Yarrow’s fur and a smile flickers on his face that turns awkward at the corners. “It’s not-” Tybalt answers, frowning as he stalls and Fenris knows he’s grasping for words that don’t fit the meaning he wants to pour into the sentence, “No offence is meant. Nothing personal. It’s too much, too there, too close. Did I say it right?”

“Hn.” The bottle of wine empties further with another gulp.

Beads begin to click and Fenris doesn’t need to look to know Hawke’s started running his string of beads through his fingers.

“Did I say it right?” Hawke asks again. He measures the words out carefully to keep them in the order he intends them to. Yarrow huffs and noses against his leg.

Fenris looks up. “You did, Hawke.”

“Words are hard,” Hawke huffs, comforted in the assurance. His fingers twist over the textures of the beads. “Too many meanings and layers. I wish- people should say what they mean.”

“You seem to have no trouble with it.” Despite what makes Hawke Hawke, he seems to do fine in gathering people around him and befriending them.

The string of beads are twisted up around Hawke’s fingers. “Just because something is hard doesn’t mean I can’t learn it. It just takes a little longer, that's all, or I have to find another way. When my friends and family depend on it... I have to keep trying."


	2. Recovery

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Varric tells a pretty tale of bravery and victory, creates a myth of a Champion, but he leaves the hurt out, doesn't mention Tybalt's recovery.

He likes it in the dark corner of his bedroom, where there’s just the weight of Yarrow’s considerable bulk pressed tight against him. There’s no shuffling, no prying eyes, no people clamouring to see the Champion. Anders complained that Yarrow’s delusion of being a lap-sized dog was slowing down his healing. The Mabari weighs less than the force of people tugging or the dread that comes with Meredith knowing. As long as the estate is quiet, Templars march down the halls. They haven't come to drag him through the street on a parade to show the Knight Commander’s hold. As long as it’s quiet, there will be no brand, not yet at least.

In the dark, no one demands words when silence is all he can give.

Yarrow’s ears twitch. Breath sucked in through his nose and Tybalt’s eyes sweep the floor. Bare toes skim the edge of pale blue moonlight fanning on the floor. Tybalt’s mouth twists, opens and then closes without a sound.

No yet.

Words don’t feel right yet. Still too much like the sword pushing sliding with the slick sickness and oh. _Oh_ this is how he’ll die. Dangling in the air on a sword like ripe fruit stolen from the tree.

“You should be in bed,” Fenris says. His voice is like steel wrapped around a bleeding wound, carefully covering so Hawke might not notice. Tybalt knows that they can both hear it, but he knows he’s not supposed to mention it. The hurt there is Fenris’s to sort out, piece together and find the person he wants to be of the life left to him. Tybalt doesn’t know what that means for him, if he’ll be a them again. There’s a little flutter in his chest even now that promises a want, a yes, but not now.

Tybalt taps the ground twice. _No._

“The mage was adamant that you were.”

Two more taps, eyes skittering to the window. There’s a scratch on the glass that catches the light. He’s noticed it before, but it’s more interesting now. He pretends that it’s more interesting, at least.

“Hawke.” There’s a huff of breath, a shift in Fenris’s feet that betrays how his shoulders square. Tybalt’s fingers curl tighter in Yarrow’s fur. His heart pounds in his chest. He can hear the blood rushing in his ears and he keeps his eyes away from the bed. How odd have their lives become for Fenris to argue on Anders’s behalf and try to make Tybalt obey Anders’s orders of bed rest.

Fenris’s feet cross the moonlight on the floor, a little river of light that separated them. He crouches down, just outside of Tybalt’s reach, right at the spot where Hawke won’t feel the press of warmth from people being too close. Fenris could have been closer once. He wouldn’t have minded the warmth then, but the pieces no longer fit right. He catches sight of the little red token on Fenris’s wrist. His breath catches, his heart aches and he looks away again.

“Hawke, I never intended- You must know that I never believed you would be defeated.” Fenris’s voice is almost steady, but trips over cracks in the steel. Did the Arishok’s sword leave them there as he cut at Hawke?

Tybalt taps the ground once. _Yes._ He looks up, just in time to see the way Fenris’s eyebrows dip before his face relaxes just a little. Relief, then.

Twisting, Fenris digs something out of the bag and hold its out to Hawke. It dangles, the red beads look nearly black in the dim light. “Aveline had the guards comb the floor for them. The w- Merrill threaded them back. It shouldn’t break again.”

Taking the beads, Hawke wraps them around his fingers, his fingers almost brushing against Fenris but not quite. He’s missed them since he woke, though he can’t remember when the string broke and his beads scattered. He must have been too busy running and trying to survive. He smiles, just a barely there twitch of his lips. He taps another yes, one that Fenris echoes with a tap of his own.


	3. Waterfall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt fill: "12 for Tybalt" ("So I found this waterfall and I wanted to know if you’d wanna come see it with me?")

Tybalt shows up early, jittery, fingers constantly dancing and bouncing on his toes. Yarrow sits on the ground next to him, his behind shaking to make up for the lack of tail. The sun isn’t even up yet, but the smears of dirt on his shirt and the grains under his fingernails betray that he's already been busy.

He smiles, beaming bright in the dark when Fenris stops before him, white hair a mussed up mess of pillows and fingers. Hawke’s fingers itch to rake through too, but he ruffles Yarrow’s fur instead. Later. He sees the twitch of his own lips on Fenris’s face.

Later.

“Hawke,” Fenris says, craning his head back to look up.

Tybalt’s gaze passes him, going to a crack in the wall behind him. His smile doesn’t waver, but his bouncing stops until he’s just standing there, halfway up to his toes. “I found this waterfall and I wanted to know if you wanted to come and see it with me?” his words rush out, all in the right order.

Just like he practices, carefully winnowed down from the rambling, over explaining story about spindleweed and Yarrow dragging both him and Merrill through the shrubbery and Varric explaining loudly behind them that this was why he didn’t do nature.

“A waterfall?”

“Yes.” Tybalt nods, his mop of hair that had never met a hairstyle it hadn’t laughed at flying about his face.

“Just a waterfall?” There’s something to Fenris’s tone Hawke can’t puzzle out. He gropes around in his memories for a reference, a moment, but comes up empty handed.

“Well, there’s always the spiders.” He hadn’t seen any the first time, but experience has proven that they have a habit of following him around just as much as random gangs of bandits have a tendency to come leaping out at him. “Or dragons.”

Fenris chuckles and shakes his head. “I can do without the spiders.” He reaches, tugs Hawke closer while he tilts his head up. “And definitely without another dragon. You are frustratingly tall.”

Sorry reflexively forms on Tybalt’s lips, but stumbles against Fenris’s. It’s quiet, save for a bird or two in the distance and Yarrow paws padding over the floor as he noses past Fenris into the mansion. Tybalt’s eyes close. His hands flounder in the air for a few seconds before he remembers what to do with them. One hand ends up on the small of Fenris’s back, the other loosely and easy to escape at the back of his neck. He smells like sleep and old blankets, fresh out of bed.

Tybalt’s neck complains about the angle, but he shoves it aside. Doesn’t compare to how Fenris feels slightly rough against him.

Well, perhaps that waterfall can wait.


	4. Soft, warm mornings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tybalt Hawke is not a morning person.

Tybalt Hawke is not a morning person.

There is this space or time... No. There is this _state_ between sleep and waking. Yes, that’s the word. _State_. He’s somewhat aware that there is a world beyond his sleep fogged mind, things outside of his heavy blanket and the Fenris-shaped warmth sprawled over his back. For the most part, his mind insists that this place is good and nice and what could he possibly gain from actually waking up?

“Hawke.” Fenris’s lips are sleep soft against the nape of Tybalt’s neck.

“Hmmm.” Tybalt nuzzles deeper into his pillow. Nice and warm and soft. A little sliver of smug satisfaction that Fenris had decided to spend the night creeps in, tugging him ever so slightly to the waking world. He doesn’t move, refuses to. The bed is good, anything outside has gained an alarming trend of devolving into blood, guts and people yelling at him. Or trying to stab him. Or set him on fire. When he’s really lucky, it’s all three. No, being in bed is much, much better.

“Hawke.” No lips now, just Fenris’s voice. He liked it better with the lips, at least then he had a chance of convincing Fenris to stay in bed with him.

Tybalt whines. He tries to burrow deeper under the blankets and away from the responsibilities that are surely lurking outside of his bed like Yarrow in front of the treats jar.

“Were you not the same man who tried to convince me to go and see a waterfall before dawn?” Fenris asks, sitting up. His fingertips trace over a new scar, just below Tybalt’s right shoulderblade.

This is the easiest time to shape words, just between the two of them and after all these years, a fumbled phrase or jumble of sounds that had started out as a word in Tybalt’s head but got muddied on the way to his lips no longer stalls the conversation. Still, though, doing the word thing means waking up. He cracks one eye open, turns his head just a little further to cast a weak, barely half-hearted – more like twelfth-hearted Hawke thinks – glare at Fenris. “Wasn’t morning for me. Technically. Hadn’t slept. ‘Sides. Fought a high dragon yes'day,” he mumbles, his mouth half smashed against the pillows. “Gedda sleep in when I’ve fought high dragons.”

Fenris’s chuckle is warm, sunshine on a later summer afternoon all golden and orange and red. Tybalt’s eyes drift closed, basking in it like a spoiled cat.

“And I suppose that you have fought many a high dragon, to create such a rule.” An eyebrow arches up, just the left one. It always amazes Tybalt that Fenris can get his face to move like that.

“One’s enough,” Tybalt insists. “An’ it had babies.” Which they’d had to kill and sure, the dragonlings had been trying to kill them too. The dragonlings had, in fact, been very insistent about being bloodthirsty and murderous, but still. Killing dragonlings had been like killing baby animals. Big, scaly baby animals that had left toothmarks – beakmarks? – on his staff.

“While I can’t fault your logic-” Hawke knows that the dip in Fenris’s voice, the way his eyes crinkle at the corners, means fondness and he answers it with a smile “-there remains the matter that you agreed to see King Alistair today.”

Oh.

_That._

“Noooooo,” Tybalt whines and jerks the blanket over his head, to the sound of Fenris’s soft, barely more than a chuckle, laugh.


	5. Missing you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr prompt fill: for Tybalt Hawke 60) "I Miss you"
> 
> Tybalt misses his sister.

I miss you,” Tybalt whispers to the memory of his sister while his fingers dig through soil, carefully removing weeds by the roots from his saplings. He casts the weeds off to the side for animals to find later. Carver’s boots crunch gravel a few feet behind him, back and forth. Tybalt closes his eyes and shakes his head to force the sound away.

There’s a raw spot, aching emptily at Carver’s side.

Tybalt’s caught himself looking at that spot more than once with a smile, expecting a comment or a quietly murmured explanation why someone responded in a certain way. Instead of Bethany, there is silence and air now. Instead of Bethany’s smile, there’s Carver’s clenched jaw. Things have been more difficult with Carver than with Bethany, not always, but now that both she and father are gone, there’s no one left to translate Tybalt’s interactions to the world in a way that it doesn’t catch and tear on the rough edges between the brothers.

“We should get going,” Carver says, impatience layered thick on his voice. Tybalt glances over his shoulder, spots the white knuckles on the hilt of Carver’s sword. “Athenril’ll be waiting.”

“You can go ahead, if you want.” He still had weeds to pull, more to tell Bethany. They couldn’t take anything to mourn her with, but Tybalt carried the memories of her helping him in his little gardens; her little fingers deftly plucking out weeds or accidentally one of his herbs. He feels closest to her in the little herb garden he managed to create in a hidden little cove between the Wounded Coast and Kirkwall.

Carter growls under his breath. “I’m not leaving you here by yourself,” he said.

“I’ll be fine. I can take care of myself.” Tybalt bristles. He’s not helpless. He doesn’t need people to hold him by the hand and tell him what he can and can’t do, fussing over him as if he were a defenceless child.

“We’ve seen that.” Carter rakes a hand through his hair, goes back to crunching the gravel under his boots.

Tybalt’s shoulders tense. He digs his fingers into the dirt and works his mouth to try and catch a word. Yarrow whines and pushes his nose against Tybalt’s shoulder.

The gravel quiets. One, two rough breaths before Carter speaks again. “I’m- I know… that is… I’m not leaving you here by yourself. What if Templars show up?”

“What do you care?” The words escape Hawke before he can pull him back and Carter is on him in a second, face pale and furious. Tybalt flinches away from the hands on his shoulders. Too rough. Not on purpose, but he's never been able to get used to Carver's touch the way he was used to their father's and Bethany's.

“I care, okay? Don’t ever- don’t EVER doubt that. We already lost Bethany. I’m not gonna lose you too but if Templars find out about you… If they find out what you are.” He lets go, staggers back a few steps and rubs his hands over thee sides of his armour. The sound grates. There’s no apology. Neither of them is very good at it. Instead, they say the things that come close enough. “We can stay a little longer,” Carver offers.

Tybalt twirls his beads around his fingers and nods. “I won't let the Templars take me away,” he says.

They both know that in Kirkwall, where being an apostate is already close to a death sentence or Tranquility, being the way Hawke is? That’s a sure thing that he will never walk out of those Gallows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of feel as if I should defend Carver in this fic. From my headcanon this is still very early after Bethany was killed and the brothers are both hurting over it. They're not very good at communicating with each other. Carver constantly worries over Tybalt, but doesn't know how to express it. He'll be the first to jump to Tybalt's defense, no matter what.


	6. Dates should not involve spiders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was supposed to be a date. He even asked Varric for advice. That was his first mistake. His second mistake was forgetting for the vast hordes of homicidal arachnids that seem to be just about everywhere. (Tybalt has lousy luck and they now have a rule dictating that squishy mages shouldn’t physically tackle enemies)

"Your ability to run into homicidal arachnids will never cease to amaze me.” Fenris sounds amused. Tybalt is willing to count that as a win. It might be the only good thing coming out of this spectacular failure of an attempt at a date.

At least they’re not dragons.

That would have been worse.

“It’s a gift,” Tybalt says, teeth clenched together. His skin feels wrong, tight with fire just underneath it pulsing and pushing while blood runs down his arm. They’re safe for the moment, hiding in a cave the spiders can’t get in to.

“Perhaps you ought to consider returning it.”

Tybalt presses the back of his head against the cave’s wall and swallows against the fever in his throat. Everything feels soft, drifting out of his head. There’s nothing to weigh him down, nothing to keep him in place. His breath comes quicker and quicker, hurtling out with scarcely a moment to draw oxygen in while his chest feels as if steel bands tighten around it.

Stupid. His fault. Never should have left Yarrow with Aveline. Never should have been so distracted by Fenris that he didn’t see the spiders until it was too late.

_Shit._

Here lies the Champion. He defeated the Arishok only to die at the fangs of a spider. Tybalt wants to laugh, but the sound comes out as a bitter gasp.

_Who’s going to tell Carver?_

“Hawke!”

Tybalt blinks, shaking his head out of the spiralling thoughts dragging him into nothing. Fenris’s face looks fuzzy around the edges, hovering inches from him. He tries to touch, but molten lead has replaced his bones, cast gravity as the enemy.

Pain lances through his arm and Tybalt cries out before he can think of stopping himself, jerking away for the inch of space they have.

“It got you.” Fenris’s voice shakes, lines of fury tangling with raw fear. His fingers shake when he touches Tybalt’s arm again. It’s barely more than a brush, but Tybalt flinches away regardless and swallows a shout. “What were you thinking?! Why didn't you say something?!”

Tybalt clenches his jaw. “It was… it was on top of you. Couldn’t let it kill you.” Every word comes out more difficult than the last. This isn’t just blood loss. He knows it and the furrowed lines he can just about make out on Fenris’s blurry face tell him that the elf knows it too.

Poison, because they weren’t in enough trouble already.

“You’re a _mage_ , Hawke.” Fenris stresses the word as if it should have an extra meaning that Tybalt can’t make out. “You’re not meant to tackle spiders.”

Oh. That’s what he meant. Tybalt squints at Fenris, forcing his face back into focus. “Couldn’t let it kill you,” he repeats. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth.

“So you’ll force me to watch the man I…” Fenris’s voice stalls over a word he doesn’t want to utter, yet fills the air in the cave. “You’ll force me to watch you suffer instead.” He might change the sentence, but the word is still there.

“Sorry.” Tybalt’s head lolls back and he wonders, absurdly, if this was what that old, understuffed ragdoll Bethany used to carry around felt like, head and limbs uselessly flopping about.

“Don’t be sorry. Stay with me, Hawke. Hawke! Tybalt!” Whatever else Fenris says, shouts at him, flits away into the nothing that swallows Tybalt whole.

 

***

 

Hawke wakes to a soft bed with Yarrow sprawled over his legs. He tries to sit up, but gasps as pain in his shoulder flares up.

“That’ll hurt for a few more days.” He hears Anders before he sees him. “You’re lucky you had enough potions with you.” The other mage steps into view. He looks paler than the last time Hawke saw him, with darkly smudged shadows under his eyes.

Tybalt looks away from his friend to his bedside, where Fenris sits with ramrod straight spine, stiff shoulders and a look on his face that Tybalt can’t place. He bites his lip and looks at the beads wrapped around his wrist instead, listens to Anders while he explains the damage done to Tybalt’s shoulder and how far he could heal it before nature had to take its course, only looking up when Anders falls silent. Tybalt catches the tail end of a look exchanged between Anders and Fenris, a curt nod from the elf.

Screwing up to the degree that Anders and Fenris will team up on him takes a lot of effort. Apparently, Tybalt excels at it.

Anders jabs a warning finger in Tybalt’s direction. “Don’t do that again. We’ve made it a unanimous rule that us squishy mages are not allowed to tackle anything hostile. Take it easy for the next few days and your shoulder should be as good as new.” He says the latter with a faint smile before he wanders out of the room. Tybalt catches a few words of him muttering about something called childer and never letting Hawke run into them. Tybalt decides that it might be best for his sanity that he doesn’t ask.

And that leaves him with just Fenris and a suspiciously quiet Yarrow. Tybalt swallows nervously. The beads slide faster and faster through his fingers, but freeze when the mattress dips under the added weight.

“Don’t do that to me again, Hawke,” Fenris says. His voice is tightly controlled and soft, only a breath away if that much. “I could not bear it if you-”

He doesn’t finish the sentence. Instead, his hands find their way into Tybalt’s hair. Foreheads press together and Fenris draws in a deep, shuddering breath that makes Tybalt’s heart ache. A kiss follows, careful at first as if he fears that he could hurt Tybalt but then harder, demanding reassurance that this is real and Hawke still draws breath, that his heart still beats. Tybalt kisses him back, draws Fenris back in when he pulls away.

Neither of them notice Yarrow trudging out of the room with the most put upon sigh a dog could ever hope to master.


	7. Deal? Deal.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tumblr prompt fill: "#50 - 'Deal? Deal' for Tybalt."
> 
> Set during Act 1. A talk with Varric about something that Tybalt wasn’t aware of he was doing. In Tybalt’s defence, he really did think he was just being friendly. Embarrassed dying druffalo noises happen.

"No.” Hawke’s voice is filled with horror. He buries his face in his hands just as Yarrow drops his head in Tybalt’s lap with a supportive huff. At least, Tybalt pretends that it’s supportive. It makes him feel a little better.

Varric can’t quite manage to keep the laughter from his voice. “Oh yes.”

“No.” Tybalt’s cheeks flame up. Oh, if only the earth could open up underneath his feet and swallow him whole. There had to be a spell that did that. Maybe Merrill knew. She’d help him out, wouldn’t she?

“So you really didn’t know that-”

"That I was _flirting?!_ “ The pitch of Tybalt’s voice went up as high as the hole that he wanted to dig for himself was deep. "No. Oh Maker.” There may have been a whimper there. Maybe.

Put a staff in his hand and point him at whoever needs to get their ass kicked and he’s fine. He knows what’s expected. He knows what’s coming and what he he has to do to keep everyone safe. This? No idea.

When he’d gone to Varric, asking for an explanation why his friendfiction had a Tybalt putting the moves on Anders, Tybalt had expected something about creative freedom or something like that. He hadn’t expected Varric to start laughing. He hadn’t expected, once the dwarf had stopped laughing, to be presented with an itemized list of all the times when he had apparently hit on Anders.

How was this his life? What had he done to deserve this? It's not that he doesn't like Anders, but Hawke knows the difference between liking people as friends and, well, the other way. His liking for Anders is definitely the friends kind.

“Does he think I was…” Tybalt’s voice trails off and he starts to scratch Yarrow behind the ears, earning him a pleased sigh from the mabari. At least someone is having a good time. Well, Varric still looks far too amused.

“Hawke. _Daisy_ thought that you were.”

A sound that is more related to a dying druffalo than to anything, well, human escapes from Tybalt. He sinks as far into his seat as his tall body will allow. “But he’s my friend,” he insists.

Varric shakes his head. “Not like that’s stopped anyone before.”

“Does Fenris think…” Tybalt’s voice is small and barely audible over the din in the Hanged Man. If Fenris thinks that he wants Anders, he might have screwed up any kind of infinitesimal chance he had. This stuff is far more complicated than it has any right to be. Don’t they have a manual that covers all of this?

Varric blinks. “You mean that you-”

“I was _trying_ to hit on him.”

Varric blinks again. “You meant that your ‘that would be a waste’ mumble was supposed to be flirting?”

Tybalt gives a miserable little nod. Why do people allow him to speak? He should never speak in public. Ever. Carver could just tell everyone that he’s a mute. That ought to save him any future embarrassment. He’s faintly aware of Varric bursting out in laughter.

Maybe he’ll be lucky, Tybalt thinks to himself. Maybe he can just go and stay in the Deep Roads after the expedition gets there. A nice little cave all to his own. At least it would get him out of a very painful 'I like and admire you but only as a friend and I’m sorry for unwittingly flirting with you’ talk he knows he'll have to have with Anders.

“Maker’s balls, Hawke, you really need help with this.”

“Y'think?” Yes he needs help. All the help. Tybalt starts to play with Yarrow’s ears.

“Tell you what. The next time you accidentally hit on someone of the not-Broody persuasion, I’ll let you know. Deal?” Varric waits for a nod from Tybalt. “Deal. And don’t worry, I’ll make that 'that would be a waste thing’ sound much better in the story.”

Tybalt will be having words with Varric a few years later about how tagging on 'a perfectly handsome elf’ to his failure of a line does not make him sound better.


	8. In a Flash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was supposed to be a simple grab and return. They hadn't counted on bandits jumping them on the way back. (Set during early Act 3)

As far as bandits go, Tybalt has to say they're not particularly good. He's been charged head on by two handed swordsmen Qunari who displayed a greater understanding of the concept of stealth than this group that is trying to hide from view. He's not too worried. They're on their way back from a simple grab and return. There hadn't even been a demon guarding the lost cargo. They can take a group of poorly organized bandits.

Oh for the love of- He can see a sword sticking out from behind that bush.

Maybe he should sit them down with Varric or Isabela so they can be traumatized into obeying the basic principles of being a rogue. No. No one deserves that and he's fairly certain that Aveline will frown at him if he starts trying to educate criminals on how to undertake their illegal activities with more efficiency.

His fingers card through Yarrow's fur and he glances sideways, making sure that Fenris has seen them as well. Their eyes meet and Tybalt does his best to ignore the way his heart skips a beat, the way it aches and the words 'I can't' echoing in his ears. Fenris gives a slight, jerky nod. He's seen them. Tybalt resists the urge to check back and see if Anders and Isabela saw them too.They can take care of themselves in a fight. Of course they'll have spotted the bandits as well.

Maybe he should tell them that they've been seen and ask if they really want to attack the man who defeated the Arishok. It could work. It's worked before. Of course, that had been Varric announcing it. Varris is a natural when it comes to bluffing while Tybalt, well, he was no longer allowed to take part in games of diamondback because he was so bad at it that it made the rest of the people feel as if they were cheating. Not that that stopped Isabela from cleaning him out.

"Maybe you-" That's about as far as he gets when the bandits come rushing out of hiding, swords drawn and looking as if they will cut him down mid-sentence.

_Rude._

Tybalt ducks, barely avoiding a sword blow aimed at his head. He comes back up, his staff a comfortable weight in his hand. Pain slices a fine line through his left upper arm. Damn it, he really needs to learn to guard his left better.

It doesn't matter. He's had worse. Keep going.

He smashes his staff into the side of the man's face with as much force as he can muster. The man crumples and Tybalt twists, blasting the two men behind him with a cone of cold that freezes them in their spot for a mere fraction of second before they shatter. Fenris stands behind where they were, sharp smirk on his face and a short nod for Hawke before he jumps into the fray again.

Tybalt hits the guy on the ground one last time with his staff, just to make sure he'll stay out cold.

The sounds of metal hitting metal, the shouts, Yarrow's snarling and growling, wash around him like a storm at sea, but he knows this storm. He has weathered it before. He knows who's with him and who's against him. There's no hidden meaning for him to decipher or struggle with here. Everything is clear.

Anders is having a lot of fun unleashing his magic on the remaining bandits while Isabela seems to be everywhere and nowhere at once in a flurry of taunts and knives. Tybalt prepares to cast a fireball when a flash of light blinds him for a second. He squints, swinging his gaze up the hill.

"Watch out!" he shouts, but the last of his warning is drowning out by an all overpowering surge of sound and fire. The shockwave sends him flying. He hits the ground with a dull thud, sliding a few more feet through the dirt. His lungs burn for air and his ears ring. He rolls over, gasping, struggling to get back to his feet.

The world spins.

Breathe. Focus. It's all okay. Don't fall apart. You're not dying. This isn't an anxiety attack. The enemy is outside, not inside. He wavers, squinting at the glint of light. That is one _very_ shiny mage. Sunlight reflecting off of pieces of metal stitched onto his robes.

Tybalt makes a mental note to never comment on Anders's feathers again. He wears the same colours as the rest of the bandits. How hadn't they noticed him? Sloppy. Cocky, probably.

Swaying, Tybalt forces himself to steady. He swallows, focuses. What- Crushing prison should do the trick. Magic breathes around him, soothing over frayed nerves, easing away the scent of burned hair with petrichor, and he casts. The bandits' mage yells in frustration and pain, but he can't move.

Isabela dashes past Tybalt with a furious shout. She doesn't take kindly to being blown up. He should remember that for the future. Anders is getting back to his feet as well, Tybalt notes. That leaves-

The world sweeps out from under his feet.

_Fenris isn't moving._

Tybalt runs towards him before he even realizes what he's doing. His knees give out just as he takes his last stumbling step. "Nonono," he stammers, reaching for Fenris with shaking hands. He looks so pale, blood poured from a cut on the side of his head, smeared over a rock right next to him. "No. No. _Please._ No." His voice descends to a broken moan.

There are voices, but they're distant, as if through water. Someone grabs him by the shoulders, dragging him back. A voice better suited to teasing and flirting murmurs something but the words are distorted. He tries to fight, but she's stronger right then. Yarrow presses his bulk against Tybalt's legs, helping Isabela in holding him back.

Anders kneels next to Fenris, hands glowing, murmuring spells that Tybalt never quite managed to get the hang of.

 _Pleasepleaseplease._ He's not certain if he's repeating the words out loud or not, a one word prayer for Fenris to open his eyes and grunt something in annoyance. Isabela holds on to him. Her perfume clogs his nose and her hands are wrong, putting pressure in the wrong places and all he wants is for her to let go. At that moment, even Yarrow feels wrong.

"Breathe, Hawke," Isabela says.

Yarrow whines in agreement.

Breathing is good. Breathing would be very good. He tries, but his eyes go back to Fenris and his breath catches behind the rock lodged in his throat.

But then it happens. Fenris moves, groans faintly and Anders staggers back.

"Going to stay up straight?" Isabela asks. Tybalt gives a jerky nod, eyes fixed on Fenris. He wants to move, but he can't. Not forward, not backward, but at least he doesn't collapse when Isabela lets go of him.

The claw around his heart releases the second Fenris sits up, growling at Anders to let go. Tybalt stares, all big eyes and pale face, shattered heart plain as day on his face. Their eyes meet. "Thank you," Tybalt whispers, not certain who he's thanking. Fenris, for being there. Anders for healing the elf, Isabela for keeping her calm or- anything.

Tybalt steps forwards, shaking all over, reaching his hand in offering to Fenris, who grabs it and pulls himself up. Tybalt can't help himself. He hauls Fenris closer and clings to him. "Don't- please don't-" he whispers, begging.

He can live with only ever being Fenris's friend if that's what he needs, but losing Fenris like this? No. Not ever.

Fenris stands frozen for a second, then carefully wraps his arms around Tybalt. "I won't," he promises, whisper soft.


	9. Silent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fill for Tumblr prompt: "Could I possibly request some Fenhawke, prompt #2: "things you said through your teeth"?"
> 
> Fenris after the Arishok fight

Fenris doesn't speak. Not when he and Aveline carry Hawke home, stopping far too often because Tybalt has started bleeding again from one of the many -- far more than Fenris even wants to consider -- injuries from his fight. Hawke's long limbs don't move and his wrists seems oddly naked without the string of red beads Fenris has grown so used to.

He doesn't answer when Bodahn opens the door and asks what happens, doesn't say a word when Orana gasps in shock.

He can't get the image out of his head. He can't shake the sight of the Arishok charging at Tybalt and then the blood.

Tybalt won, he keeps telling himself. Tybalt breathes. He lives and he will survive.

Fenris won't permit anything else.

Even later, as Anders works tirelessly to heal Hawke's wounds both with magic and more mundane means, Fenris doesn't talk. Not even to defend himself against the mage's wildly flung accusations of trying to get Tybalt killed. Fenris's shoulders are stiff, his knuckles white while his nails bite half moon shapes into the palms of his hands.

Tybalt's blood soaks through the first bandages all too quickly.

Yarrow whines from his spot at the foot of the bed. That dog might be the only reason Tybalt's heart is still beating.

By the time the bandages stay white and Tybalt has a hint of colour back on his face, Anders is swaying on his feet and Bodahn escorts him off, undoubtedly to a bed somewhere within the estate.

Fenris doesn't leave. He drags a chair to Tybalt's bedside and sits down, allows himself to feel for the first time since Tybalt stepped forward to face the Arishok, all desperate determination. He shudders, breath dragging all the hurt and worry through his nerves. His fingers curl into the blanket, near Tybalt's hand but not touching.

"You will get through this," he says through gritted teeth, every word a punch through his chest. "You will. If you-"

He halts, throat burning and he clenches his eyes shut.

"I will _not_ allow it."

Tybalt doesn't stir, but his chest rises and falls. His heart keeps beating and that is all Fenris dares to ask for at that moment.


	10. Midnight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kirkwall has taken so much. Is it any wonder that he sometimes thinks of leaving? (Act 3)

Tybalt can't sleep. There's no reason for it. His bed is soft. He has Fenris imitating a sleeping, four-limbed octopus with the side of his face smushed against Tybalt's chest. There's no one pounding on the door, announcing that there's some giant problem that only he can solve. There are no disasters happening. There are no invading Qunari. As far as he knows even the demons have decided to take the night off.

Well, they probably haven't and he'll find out what they've been up to in some horrible, nightmare inducing fashion tomorrow. Knowing his luck, that'll happen before he's even had a chance at breakfast.

"You should sleep," Fenris mumbles against his chest with a sleep heavy voice. Little puffs of warm air brush over Tybalt's skin.

Hawke blinks. For a second, his mind doesn't click that Fenris just spoke. Fenris is asleep, isn't he? No, it's far more likely that he was mistaken rather than that the elf has started fussing over him in his sleep.

"Did I wake you?" The words sound clunky in the silence, not fitting together as well as he had hoped.

Fenris nods against his chest. "You're tapping my back." He doesn't even try to stifle a yawn.

"Oh." He forces his fingers to a halt. In his defence, Fenris's skin is warm and smooth and feels right. "Sorry."

"Mmmnnnnh." Tybalt isn't certain whether Fenris meant for that sound to be a word or not. Instead of asking, he bites his lip and forces his fingers to still.

Fenris's chin presses between two of his ribs after a few moments and sleepy eyes squint up at him. "Why are you still awake?" he asks. "Have you even slept?" Calloused fingertips trace aimless patterns over Hawke's skin, gliding across old and new scars.

Tybalt closes his eyes for a second, trying out what he wants to say in his head, changes the word order, picks out different words that get the meaning better but comes up blank in the end. Fenris's weight shifts on top of him, squirming and turning until the elf sits straddling Tybalt's waist, hands on the sides of Tybalt's face, soft but insistent. "What's bothering you?"

Tybalt swallows. "I... do you ever think we could leave?"

"Leave?" Fenris echoes, blinking at him.

"Go somewhere else. Have a farm or something. Grow stuff. Maybe keep some goats."

"I don't like goats," Fenris informs him in a matter of fact tone of voice. "They eat everything and look as if they're up to something."

"We could still have a farm. Away from Kirkwall." Far, far away from prying eyes and judgement and the screaming for him to fix things but turning around and heaping blame on him in the next breath. They could be somewhere without Meredith and the ever looming threat of him being dragged into the Gallows.

Fenris leans down, pressing the softest butterfly touch of a kiss to the corner of Tybalt's mouth. "Would that make you happy?" he asks without straightening back up.

Would it? He imagines the far stretched horizon, Ferelden's forests, digging into the rich soil. "Would you come with me?" he asks, quiet and working so very hard to keep a tremor of worry out of his voice.

"If that is your choice, I will be by your side." Fenris's voice holds a promise of years to come, of many mornings waking up tangled in each other's limbs, of soft kisses and harder ones, of nails raking down his back and warm smiles.

Tybalt sighs; it comes out in an explosive burst of relief. He wraps his arms around Fenris, crushing the elf against him. Nuzzling against Fenris's neck, he breathes in deep. "I can't leave, can I?"

Silence wraps around them and Tybalt's arms relax, leaving Fenris space to push up a little. "You are not bound to this city, Hawke. If you truly wish to leave, nothing will stand in our way."

His hands find Tybalt's, fingers wrapping together. A smile, a small and fragile wisp made of past hurts and future hopes, creeps onto Tybalt's face. "Someone has to keep our friends out of trouble," he says.

"And I suppose the man who can't walk through Hightown at night without getting jumped is the one to do so?" Fenris asks, eyebrows arching up along with the corners of his mouth.

Tybalt laughs, the sound rumbling deep in his chest. "Ah... true."

"Do you want to leave?" Fenris asks, reaching to brush a strand of hair out of Tybalt's face.

Closing his eyes, he thinks it over. Kirkwall has taken more from him than he ever thought he could give. Has given him responsibilities he was never meant to carry but... it's also given him friends, as messy and broken as they can be at times. Without Kirkwall, he would never have met Fenris.

"The farm can wait," he decides, drawing Fenris back down for a kiss. For now, he'll manage.


	11. Jokes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the suggestion for the first day of Fenhawke week: "Oh-ho! The broody elf tells a joke!"

Hawke hauls himself up from his seat, brushing his hands over his trousers and trying to ignore the way his feet stick to the floor. Hygiene at the Hanged Man has not improved over the years. He's pretty sure that the only reason the rats haven't come in to take over is only because they're afraid of catching something.

"Varric," he says, forcing his voice past a yawn lodged in his throat, "It's been great, but I have to get going."

Claws scratch over the wooden floor boards and a mere second later, Yarrow is by his side.

"What? I haven't even won all of your coin!" Varric's voice fills the room in a wave of warm sound.

Tybalt smiles, shaking his head. "Let's keep it like that."

Fenris unfolds himself with a grace that never fails to wake a spark of envy in Tybalt. Among other things. He reflexively probes the bump at the back of his head, remembering the ceiling of that morning's cave. People with his lack of spatial awareness should not come in over six feet tall editions. That's just cruel.

"Fenris?" Merill asks with a tone that makes Tybalt wonder if he can grab Fenris with one arm, Yarrow in the other and run out the door before she can say another word. He loves Merrill, really, adores her enough that even the blood magic doesn't matter much these days. His father's voice is never far from the back of his mind, but it's not as if she's using other people's blood. She has the ability, though, to ask exactly the kind of question that make his stomach turn and set his face on fire.

The answer, by the way, is no. No, he cannot grab Fenris and Yarrow and escape the Hanged Man in time.

"Are you ever going to move in with Hawke?"

He still doesn't have a spell that will open the ground beneath his feet and swallow him whole though… well, this is the Hanged Man. Maybe all it will take for the floorboards to give way is him jumping up and down a few times.

On the upside, his dying druffalo impression is still spot on. He hides his face in hand for a moment, doing his very best to conceal it as him rubbing his hand over his face instead.

"Yes, Elf," Varric cuts in because Tybalt's life is just great like that. "When are you planning to give up on the Murder Mansion and make an honest man out of our ruffled bird?"

Oh look, Tybalt bemoans to himself, things _can_ get worse. He should probably say something. If he was the Hawke from Varric's stories, something witty would come out, sharp as Isabela's daggers and as quick as Varric's draw. Except he's not that Hawke. He's Tybalt and all he can do is clamp down on the objection that he is an honest man already. He knows that that's not the way Varric means it. Now if only a dragon can come swooping in and set the place on fire. That would make everything so much better

Fenris doesn't say anything, for a moment, instead tucking the coin he's won away. "I need the estate," he says, voice completely flat.

"For what?" Aveline asks.

Tybalt is quietly glad that Isabela hasn't mixed herself into the conversation just yet. The way she's leaning forward, smirk playing on her lips and eyes just slightly narrowed set his nerves off all the same. He swallows, adam's apple bobbing up and down like a particularly anxious frog.

"For dinner parties," Fenris responds.

Varric's laugh and Merrill's giggle, even the stretching of Isabela's smirk into a smile leave Tybalt feeling as if he's missed something. Again.

"You never invite me to these parties." He gives Fenris a wounded look until he catches the elf's eye and- Oh. _Oh_. Right. Tybalt heaves a sigh. "You know, I like really the whooshing sound your jokes make as they fly over my head."

That, at least, earns him a laugh.

"Do you arrange the corpses? Make seating charts for them?" Tybalt presses on, smiling.

Fenris tilts his head and Tybalt swears he sees a smile creeping around the corner there. "Sometimes," Fenris says, his voice dipping low enough to send shivers down Tybalt's spine, "there are even hats."


	12. That Bookshop AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the prompt "In Any Other World" in the Fenhawke week. Modern AU where Tybalt works in a bookshop and continues to be an awkward muffin and Fenris realizes he doesn't stand a chance the second Tybalt offers him tea.

The sky breaks open at seven past three, turning the street outside the bookshop into a river of roiling water and filth. Rain clatters against the window, rippling the view outside into a strange kaleidoscope that Hawke can't quite look away from, that is at least until the door slams open and someone comes hurtling in.

Tybalt's startles, jolting up straight, heart jumping into his throat. He'd been so caught up in the swirl of muted colours and shapes that he hadn't noticed anyone approaching.

It's a man, he realizes, shorter than him though that's not a difficult feat, with white hair stuck to his face. He clamps down on curiosity. Merrill and Bethany bleached and then painted their hair in matching pastels last year before ganging up on him until he conceded to them subjecting him to the same treatment. It's grown out by now, luckily. He's not even mentioning Carver's tattoo that can apparently be made to bark. Tybalt doesn't want to know how. Either way, he's not about to judge people for their choice in-

Oooh, he has tattoos too. He's never seen ones like those before. They're all white and strangely elegant, standing out against the stranger's tanned skin. Tybalt tilts his head, studying the lines he can see on the stranger's chin, leading down over his neck. Wouldn't that have hurt?

The man scrapes his throat and Tybalt's eyes snap up, then quickly dart over the other's shoulder. Ah crap. He got caught staring.

"Suh-sorry," he says, stumbling over the word. He catches Mahariel from the corner of his eyes, peering from amidst the shelves he was cataloguing. Tybalt always finds it a comfort that his boss will back him up instead of insisting he 'act normal'. He hasn't thanked Varric enough for introducing him to Mahariel.

"It's no problem," the man says, wiping strands of soaked hair out of his face. Droplets of water glint on his hands. He's handsome, Tybalt will admit to that, but it's the voice that sets a warm buzz of in his brain, makes him want to talk to the stranger and hear more.

"You are open, are you not?" he asks.

They have a sign on the door that declares that they are, indeed, open for business. Maybe he hasn't seen it, in his rush to get inside.

"We are," Tybalt rushes to answer. "It's just quiet, not a lot of people out with the weather." He gestures, then catches himself. Of course the guy knows about the weather. He was the one caught in the downpour. There's water dripping from the man's clothes and Hawke knows that it's not exactly warm in the store. The man isn't even shivering.

"Can I- Can I help you with something?" Tybalt asks. "Are you looking for a book or did you just want to browse?"

The man's eyes – Tybalt feels his breath catch when he gets caught in their colours – flit to the bookcases. His eyebrows dip and there's a brief flash of wrinkles on the bridge of his nose. It means something, but Tybalt can't quite figure out what. Maybe he can ask Mahariel later. Or Anders, if his neighbour is home.

"Perhaps I should leave." The stranger backtracks, on step closer to the door.

No. No no no. Don't leave. Hawke wants to take back whatever he said that made the guy want to leave. Or replace himself with one of the smoother, socially capable heroes in the multitude of books that surround them. Instead, what comes out makes even him blink.

"Let me make you some tea!" Yes. Because that makes absolute sense. His hands flutter for a moment before he finds the beads around his left wrist and starts twisting them, fingertips rubbing over their wooden surface. "I mean... ah... that is-" Come on words, he can do this, he's got this "-you're probably cold and that's not going to get better any time soon. Outside. I mean. The rain."

Mahariel has gone back to cataloguing the inventory. His boss is absolutely no help, abandoning him to talk with a handsome guy with a voice that does things to his brain. And now the other man is going to think Tybalt's lost it.

The man looks outside for a second and Tybalt is absolutely certain he's contemplating just bolting into the pouring rain again, except he turns back with the slightest of smiles on his face. "I would appreciate that."

Tybalt's heart lifts up, fluttering somewhere in his throat. "I'm Hawke, by the way," he says as he directs the other to one of the empty chairs. "Well, actually Tybalt Hawke but everyone calls me Hawke."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Hawke. My name is Fenris."

"It's nice to meet you. I'll... uh... I'll go get you a towel. You're kinda dripping." There's a tiny puddle forming around Fenris's shoes, a perfect excuse for Tybalt to escape before his face actually catches on fire. He jogs past Mahariel, who nods at him with a slight smile that tells Tybalt that his boss has been listening in and Not Helping on purpose.

He brings out one of the few towels Yarrow hasn't managed to shed his fur all over, followed by two steaming mugs of tea. They talk, awkward and halting, Tybalt stumbling over words until they hit on a shared interest in Varric's Hard in Hightown being turned into a TV series.

"I've seen a trailer for it," Fenris says, "It looks interesting. My roommate says the books are decent."

That's all Hawke needs to become all animated gestures and a flood of words. Bethany often says that he starts to glow when one of his interests come up. Later, when he walks home with Yarrow by his side, he's amazed that Fenris didn't stop him. Tybalt can't remember him giving any signals that he should stop talking.

Fenris, Hawke realizes, actually asked him questions. He asked questions about the books, which he apparently hasn't read even though they're consistent best-sellers. Some people don't like to read, Hawke tells himself, doesn't mean they don’t want to hear about the stories.

Tybalt's face splits into a wide smile, a bounce creeps into his step. Maybe Fenris will come back. He hopes so, at least.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm toying with the idea of turning this in a longer, multiple chapters fanfic because slow build and fluff and books.


	13. Nightminds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by the "Facing their demons" for Fenhawke week. The nightmare is over the second Fenris wakes, but the mingling of his memories and fears leave him ill at ease.

Fenris doesn't wake screaming. He's learned not to. He doesn't jolt up. His breath doesn't spike. His eyes don't even snap open. He stiffens, but only slightly. Don't draw attention, experience whispers in his mind, through the darkness before he's even aware of the warmth under his skin, the slight wheezing snore that goes with Hawke sleeping on his back.

His fingers twitch against Tybalt's skin, lingering briefly in the comfort of the mage just being there before memories claw at the edges of his mind, paint monsters in the shadows and unforgiving hands on him.

Sucking his breath in through clenched teeth, Fenris pulls away. His bare feet hit the floor, chill wrapping around his ankles and wrists. He stumbles and steadies himself on the corner post of the bed they share.

His nails dig into the wood, clenches his eyes shut. One breath in, one breath out, before he dares to look over his shoulder. Tybalt is still asleep, hair in his face, one arm flung out over the other pillow.

Peaceful.

He looks down at his own hands, clenching them tight with white knuckles and his marks flaring up. Don't think about that, he tells himself. Don't think about the shocked look on Tybalt's face, the blood on his hands or Danarius praising him like a good dog. It's just a dream, just memories and fears mixing together.

He takes another deep breath, fills his lungs up and tries to chase the cobwebs out. Maybe one day, it'll work.

It takes four measured strides to get to the window. The glass is cool under his touch, against his forehead. Hawke is alive. Danarius is gone. This is real.

"F'ris?" Tybalt's sleep slurred voice comes from the bed.

Fenris grits his teeth together. "Go back to sleep, Hawke." The words sound harsher to even his own ears than he intended, but he can't take them back now.

The blankets shift, fall back. "Fenris, are you alright?"

Neither of them are strangers to nightmares. He knows the few Tybalt has shared: what was left of Leandra haunting the mage, his friends infected with the Blight. But how can he share this nightmare with Tybalt?

'I killed you and was praised for it'. The thought burns at the back his throat; the memories churn in his stomach.

Another pair of bare feet hit the floor. It takes Tybalt more than four steps to get to Fenris's side, always a little unsteady for the first few steps out of bed. He's not a morning person, but he's getting up without complaint regardless. "Nightmare?" he asks, standing close but carefully outside of Fenris's personal space.

Fenris swallows against the ghost taste of blood in his mouth. He nods, short and brisk.

"That bad, huh?" Tybalt is quiet for a moment. Fenris sees him picking at the hem of his shirt, before he continues. "May I touch you?"

There is this part of Fenris that wants to say no. Not because he doesn't want to be touched. He wants to, oh how much that it sings in his blood, but fear. He could do what he's done in his dreams so easily. He's done it so many times before. Not to Hawke. Never to Hawke. He hopes. No, he knows, doesn't he? The want wins out over the fear and he gives a nearly imperceptible nod.

The touch is light, at first, a hand on his shoulder and Fenris finds himself leaning into it, lets Tybalt tug him closer until he's leaning against the much taller man.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Tybalt asks.

Fenris shakes his head. Not now, at least, not with the memories of it so fresh and clinging to him. Not when there's no sun to burn the images to vapours and ghosts he can carry.

"Come back to bed," Tybalt murmurs.

"Sleep is the farthest from my mind right now." If he closes his eyes, he knows that he'll see that again. If he falls asleep, he'll _be_ there again.

"We can read?"

Fenris shakes his head. He's better at reading now. Tybalt has been nothing if not a patient teacher, but he can't make the effort of parsing out the symbols on the page tonight. "Not in the mood for that either."

"I'll read to you," Tybalt promises and begins to draw them back to bed.

Sleep won't come to him for the rest of the night, but when Tybalt drifts off halfway through the chapter, book nearly tipping from his fingers until Fenris removes it with deft hands, he can look at Hawke again without seeing the blood and betrayal. The darkest shades of his nightmare have lifted from his conscience and he can breathe again.


	14. Grey Your Warden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Today's prompt was 'kinky'. Tybalt finds That piece of unsolicited advertising. Fenris bemoans the fact that the man he loves is a complete and utter dork.

It's a known fact that Tybalt is an unintended hoarder of anything made out of paper. Scraps and torn pieces fill his pockets; letters from years ago fill his drawers and there are more piles on his desk. He doesn't mean to keep everything. He just doesn't get around to getting rid of the notes he doesn't need. Getting distracted is easy with a group of friend who so aggressively gravitate towards mayhem on any given day.

He knows where every letter is, every note, within the carefully managed chaos. At least, Tybalt likes to claim that he does.

Except when he tries to find something. "I swear that thing grew legs and walked away," he grumbles. For a second the mental image of a letter walking off of his desk and skipping towards sweet freedom flashes through his head. He snorts, shakes his head.

"Is there something amusing?" Fenris asks. He's claimed the middle of the bed, wrapped up in one of Hawke's well worn shirts, bare toes digging into the blanket as he peers over the edge of the book he's been wrestling with that evening.

"Just paper walking," Tybalt says, chuckling for a second before he remembers that Fenris might be many things but a mindreader he's not. He opens his mouth to explain the joke, but closes it before a word makes it out. The moment has passed.

He brushes another sheet to the side, then pauses, eyes flashing over the text. A grin creeps onto his face, a cross somewhere between 'spotted naked Fenris in my bed' and 'found a new text on botany'. He picks it up, the paper crinkling between his fingers and then he turns to face the bed.

"Hawke?" Fenris sounds as if he's remembering the time Tybalt dragged the elf out with him to collect spider remains. Come to think of it, he might have been grinning kind of like the way he is now back when he'd been excitedly explaining his theory about deep mushrooms. Fenris sounded just as sceptical back then as he does now.

Tybalt's grin turns to face splitting proportions as he slowly trails back to the bed.

Fenris's eyebrows make a valiant effort at saying hello to his hairline and he puts the book down on the bedside table with all due care. "Hawke?" he asks again.

Tybalt's sense of humour is an acquired taste, mostly because he often forgets that not everyone makes the same connections as he does. It's always a stab in the dark at where his idea of something amusing will take them. Sometimes it's a damp, dark cave. Fenris is not a fan of those times.

"Do I fly at half-mast?" Tybalt asks. His voice shakes with barely contained laughter. The corners of his eyes wrinkle with it.

"What are you talking about?" Fenris's eyebrows have stopped trying to meet his hairline by then, instead dipping into a confused frown. What is the mage up to now?

The mattress dips as Tybalt crawls onto it. An awkward move since he's still holding that letter up with one hand. "Does my soldier stand to attention?"

For a second, Fenris wonders if that last collision between Tybalt's head and a cave ceiling knocked something off kilter in his head, but then realisation sinks in. He groans, unable to express the strange mix of mortification and fondness in actual words. He sinks down in the pillows instead.

"Does my dwarf shy away from the Deep Roads?"

"I will pay you to stop talking," Fenris promises with a low growl that bears no malice.

Tybalt half hovers over him. His mess of what is supposed to pass for a hairdo falls only in part victim to gravity. It's like a fluffy black halo that laughs in the face of any kind of hair care routine. Fenris digs his fingers into the wild hair, wrapping strands around his fingers. Tybalt's eyes centre on the three spots on Fenris's forehead. It's as close as he can get to sustained eye contact, but then again, neither of them is good at that.

"Do I Grey the Warden?" Tybalt asks. His words shutter, bumping into each other on his tongue while he tries to keep from laughing. Getting the words out is difficult when his mouth doesn't want to stop grinning.

Something that sounds like the bastard love child of a hiccup and a laugh escapes from Fenris. Tybalt's heart leaps up in response. Fenris is happy, right here, the two of them with Tybalt reciting those Maker awful lines from a piece of unsolicited mail and they're happy.

"Do I satisfy the deman-mppphmph?" The last few words of that sentence are swallowed into a kiss. Fenris drags him down into it, though it only lasts a few seconds if that much. Kissing and laughing, it turns out, don't mix.

"You are horrible," Fenris murmurs against the corner of his mouth.

"You love me anyway."

Fenris is quiet, for a moment. "With all my heart."

Tybalt kisses him, forgetting about the paper and instead cups Fenris's face gently, smoothing the pad of his thumbs over his cheekbones.

The world turns and suddenly, it's Fenris looking down on him, grinning all teeth and spine melting. Tybalt might have, possibly, squeaked. Might have. Not that he'll admit to such a sound and anyone who claims otherwise is a lying liar who lies. And shouldn't be listening in on what goes on in the bedroom between Fenris and him.

Tybalt's tongue darts, briefly, over his lips and he swallows against his suddenly very dry mouth. When he tries to say something, nothing but a strange little croak comes out at first. "Can I satisfy a demand of your Qun?"

"Isabela is having a terrible effect on your vocabulary."

"A fun effect, though," Tybalt counters, feeling daring enough to drag his fingers up and under the shirt Fenris has 'borrowed' from him. It hasn't escaped Tybalt's notice that Fenris always seems to end up in this shirt whenever he spends the night. He moves to repeat another line, but Fenris is on to him and sweeps down.

That's pretty much the end of Tybalt being able to produce any sort of a coherent sentence for the rest of the night.


	15. Tybalt's No Good Bad Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All right, 'fess up. Who cursed Tybalt's luck?

This has not been Tybalt's day. Any day that ends up with him limping into Anders's clinic whilst covered in mud, scrapes, bruises, spider intestines and with burns on his ankles qualifies for a place on the list of Tybalt's No Good Bad Awful Days. The best thing he can say about today is that at least no one died or betrayed him and he didn't have to go into the Fade.

It's a sad state of affairs that he actually has to use those qualifiers to differentiate between the No Good Bad Awful Days and the Almost Tempted To Learn Bloodmagic To Demand a Do Over day.

No. He's not being overly dramatic.

Okay, maybe he is. But spider intestines! On his face!

***

It started with a quick pick up at the Wounded Coast. Just grab a few boxes traders had left behind in their hurry to escape a group of Talvashoth.

Easy, right? And it was. There weren't even bandits to get in their way. A welcome change of pace, for once. They'd found the boxes, loaded their content, at least the few bottles that hadn't been cracked, into bags, when Merrill mentioned a nearby are where she had seen some signs long decayed remnants of the ancient elves.

"It's just a little detour. Can we go? Please?" she'd asked him, all big eyes and a little hopeful bounce where she stood. How was he supposed to say no to that? Even with Fenris scraping his throat in a distinct No, Hawke, No kind of way. He should learn to listen better to Fenris. Clearly Fenris's sense of self preservation is much better developed than Tybalt's.

"Sure," Tybalt had answered.

Oh, how little had he known. If he'd known the next few hours ahead of them, he would have bundled her in with the bottles and tracked back to Kirkwall with that bag swung over his shoulder.

Well, maybe he wouldn't go that far but still.

He would at least have done his very best to say no to Merrill.

But he didn't.

They ended up walking with him up front next to Merrill and Yarrow, Fenris and Isabela right behind them.

"Why don't you come and walk with me?" Tybalt had asked, glancing over his shoulder at Fenris.

"I'm quite alright back here," Fenris had said, which had drawn peals of laughter from Isabela. Tybalt still hadn't figured out why she had started laughing and he had the suspicion that maybe he didn't want to know either, if only for his own sanity.

They'd looped around the saddest looking tree Tybalt had ever seen, wandering further away from Kirkwall. They had time for it, Tybalt reasoned.

"Wait, you do what with embrium?" he asked. "I didn't-"

Right then, the ground gave away under him in a cloud of dirt and dust. For a second that felt endlessly long, he was in freefall. His back hit the floor with a squelch followed by the scent of decay and rot. Something cold and wet soaked through the back of his robe. A fraction of a second later someone landed on top of him, knocking the breath right out of his lungs. Another splash right next to him followed by a confused whine told him that Yarrow had joined him as well.

Tybalt gasped.

"HAWKE!"

"MERRILL!"

He heard Fenris and Isabela yelling somewhere above him.

"Oh! Oh, Hawke, are you alright? You're not hurt are you?" Merrill squirmed, patting Tybalt down in search for possible injury.

"I'm fine." He tried to gently dislodge Merrill from him and move her to the ground next to him. The squishy, wet ground. He felt globs of it in his hair. There was stuff sliding down his back. He was pretty sure there was something with entirely too many legs squirming in his shirt. A very, very big part of Tybalt wanted to yelp and jump around until it fell out. The other part was more concerned with Yarrow trying to lick his face clean.

Doggy breath. Delightful. He needed to have a talk with yarrow about his dental hygiene because that smell could not possibly be healthy.

"Hawke! Say something!"

Amazing, Tybalt thought, how Fenris can give a command while sounding as if he's pleading.

"I'm alright!" he yelled back, struggling to his feet. His back hurt, but he'd had worse. Yarrow pressed his flank against Tybalt's legs.

"We're coming down there," Fenris called.

Tybalt blinked, for a second, before realizing what Fenris meant. "No Fenris w-"

Aaaand it was useless. Fenris dropped through the hole, with a lot more grace than Tybalt had, and landing in the mud on his feet. The mud splashed up. A few thick globs hit the mage in the face.

Wonderful.

Isabela followed a few seconds later. The rogue at least managed to land without adding more much to the mess the mage had become. Merrill only looked marginally better by virtue of never having landed directly in the dirt. Nope, she had had her very own Hawke-shaped landing pillow.

They were stuck in the dark. Only a little bit of light filtered through the hole. Dust still floated down. All of them were ankle deep in filth and Tybalt covered his nose and mouth with his hand. The air was musty and old, soaked in the stench of forgotten ages so thick that he gagged on it.

Something wriggled on his back again and he yelped. This time, Hawke did jump and shudder, squirming where he stood.

"Something in my robes," he said (no he did not whine, he would deny that accusation to the end of times), considering whether he could stick his staff down his back or if maybe a tiny fireball could help him until Fenris stepped up, grabbing Tybalt's dagger as he went and slit a small part back of Tybalt's robe open, just above the waist. They were ruined anyway.

Isabela whistled. "Want some time alone, or do you like an audience?"

"Belaaaaa," Tybalt complained while Fenris just grunted and reached through the hole he'd created to fish the creature out. His fingers traced brief, heated lines over Tybalt's skin, lingering longer than he needed to. Tybalt leaned into the touch, right before Fenris withdrew. Something small hit the mud and slithered away.

Tybalt didn't want to know what it was. Anything slithering around in places like these tended to be nightmare fodder. As long as it hadn't bitten or scratched him, he was better off not knowing.

"Sooooo..." Isabela looked around, peering around them. "Anyone have suggestions out of here? That's too far up to get out through. Kitten, don't wander off."

Merrill's footsteps squelched away from them, the sound echoing.

"Merrill, where are you going?" Tybalt turned to watch the direction of the sounds until a strange, flickering green light lit up the area. Instead of rough, hewn out rock, the walls were made out of carefully chiselled and smoothed brick. This wasn't so much a cave, Tybalt realized, as a hall. His eyes went back to the green, flickering fire. It wasn't burning on anything, using nothing for fuel.

Tybalt's eyes widened and he rushed over. "What is that?!" He reached to touch the old metal.

"Hawke! Don't touch-" Fenris's warning came too late as Tybalt's fingers brushed the metal. It was rough and scratchy, rusted. He felt it leave a residue on his fingertips and yet it wasn't hot.

Merrill turned with a wide, excited smile on her face. "It's veilfire. This place could have belonged to my people. Hawke, can we look further? Please?"

She turned up the puppy eyes again, but with his feet sunken into muck and grime, saying no was a whole lot more tempting.

"We should get out of here," Fenris said. He sounded about as happy standing around there in the dark as Tybalt felt.

"But treasure!" That made them two against two. And all three of them were looking at Hawke for a decision.

He pinched the bridge of his nose with one hand, shaking his other wrist to feel the clicking of his beads. He never signed up to be a leader. Why did people always insist that he step up and make decisions. He still got lost and turned around in Hightown, for crying out loud.

Fine. He could do this. And have a long, long bath once he got home.

"We need to get out of here," he said. Merrill's shoulders slumped and Isabela opened her mouth to object. "But there's no harm looking around while we try to find an exit."

He really should have known better than to say that. It was as if those words filtered up to the Maker Himself and He decided, in all His wisdom, to temporarily forget that he was still mad at the people of Thedas and reach down just to prove Tybalt wrong.

That sounded awfully arrogant, but with the amount of life threatening nonsense he kept stumbling into, Tybalt was starting to become suspicious.

Merrill led the way, lighting up veilfire braziers as she went with Isabela sticking close to her. Tybalt fiddled with his beads, trying to rub away the slowly drying muck caught on the wood. Something moved through the mud behind him.

Something large, with a lot of legs. Probably a large number of them too.

"Fenris," Tybalt said.

The elf already drew his blade. "I hear them. Hawke, no tackling them."

He was never going to live that down, was he?

The snnkt of Isabela drawing her blades sang through the air, a mere second before the spiders were on them. Their multi-faceted reflected the green light. Hawke counted seven, in the brief moment before they descended into chaos. One of the spiders charged at him. Tybalt ducked out of the way; his feet skidded on the slippery floor and he went down, rolling to very narrowly avoid the spider jumping at him.

The more being jumped by spiders happened, the more Tybalt started to consider the possibility of developing arachnophobia in his near future.

A burning spider came running by, getting only a few feet from Tybalt before it exploded. Oh, this day just kept getting better and better, he though, feeling what could best be described as gunk splatter against him. Warm gunk. Warm, foul smelling gunk.

He would never be clean again.

"Sorry!" Merrill yelled, sounding as contrite as one could be while using their staff to clobber an eight legged creature who had mistaken them for lunch with their staff.

Isabela leapt over him, sinking her twin daggers into a spider behind him. "Get up, Hawke!"

"I was going to." Tybalt rolls over and scrambles to his feet just in time for him to see Fenris neatly bisect one of the other spiders. It fell apart, legs still twitching because that was an image Tybalt needed in his brain.

Something hissed above them. Tybalt twisted on instinct, flinging his hand up with a gathering of energy that turned into a fireball. It hit the spider just as it jumped down.

Nothing quite set off a flight reflex as a burning spider. Tybalt lurched back, just as two separate forces slammed into him, one of them being a mabari whose size should not be underestimated and another an elf with a deeply vested interest in keeping him alive and unscorched.

"Ack!" Too much, Too heavy. Couldn't breathe. He shoved, squirming and fighting to get free, wheezing for air that wouldn't come. Everything was suddenly thee. The nauseating smell in the long abandoned hall, the way his robes itched and scratched and stuck to him, the grainy texture of dirt everywhere. Too much. Tybalt scrambled backwards until he hit the wall. The pain of his already bruised back hitting stone jolted his mind, kicking it a little, long enough for him to find his breath again. He rubbed a hand over his face, leaving smears of dirt, and then raked it through his hair.

Merrill and Isabela hung back. They knew this sight. Crowding Hawke wouldn't do anyone any good and there are spiders to keep an eye out for.

"I'm okay," Tybalt forced out through closed teeth as Fenris crouched down before him. It felt as if his heart couldn't decide between racing in his throat and lying like a stone in the pit of his stomach. His throat felt tight and underneath the dirt and grime on his face, he could feel cold sweat.

"Are you sure? If you need time, we can wait." Fenris's hand weighed heavy on Tybalt's knee, reassuring in the pressure. Tybalt forced his own arm to lift and his hand to cover Fenris's.

They really couldn't wait there. If the spiders were any indication, Tybalt had no interest to just sit around and be easy prey for whatever else was lurking in the all too plentiful shadows.

Yarrow bumped his nose into Tybalt's hand.

"I'm okay," Tybalt repeated. "I'll be better when we get out of here." He hoisted himself back to his feet, with Fenris there to steady him. He gave the elf a grin, just this side of wobbly. "I'd kiss you right now, but I'm all sorts of disgusting."

Fenris's fingers curled around the back of Tybalt's neck, fingers just shy of digging into Tybalt's skin and he tugged the mage down. The first kiss landed awkwardly on the corner of Tybalt's mouth, the next hit the target. It was only brief, a second or two if that much. Tybalt had to stoop down to meet Fenris.

"I look forward," Fenris said in a low grumble meant only for Tybalt's ears, "to getting you into a bath."

Merrill giggled behind them.

Tybalt swallowed. His fingers wrapped around his string of beads, rubbing them up and down over his wrist. "Let's get going." He passed a potion from his pack to Isabela, another to Fenris and poured some of the last one into his hand for Yarrow to lap up, chugging the rest back himself. If they had to walk out of there, they needed to be in good shape. Merrill, luckily, hadn't been injured by the spiders.

Thank the Maker for small favours.

They walked for what felt like hours, Fenris sticking close to Tybalt, Yarrow taking point in front with Merrill and Isabela guarded their back. Tybalt wasn't certain if it was wishful thinking or him getting used to the smell (Maker he hoped not) or maybe, just maybe, the stench was easing up. If it was the latter, it meant that perhaps they were getting close to an exit out of this place.

Veilfire eventually lid an intricately carved arched doorway. The doors had long since fallen from the hinges and grew covered with mushroom and worn to nothing over what must have been centuries.

They stepped into a large domed room. Lights filtered in through holes where the ceiling had collapsed. A tree had taken root and grown determinedly up through one of the larger holes. Damaged mosaics glittered on the floors and walls.

"What is this?" Tybalt whispered. Merrill ran ahead, undoubtedly to study the mosaics. He looked around, eyes settling on an altar at the far corner. He strode across the room curiosity wiping away caution. Something stood on it, gleaming as if the countless years that had left it abandoned hadn't dared touch it.

Something bonechillingly cold snapped through the room just as his fingertips touched the golden box. His breath fogged before him. He heard Fenris call something out in alarm. The world lurched with something hot and stinging wrapped around Tybalt's ankle. It jerked him right off of his feet and into the air.

His swung, his stomach making a valiant effort to keep his lunch down or, well, technically up, Tybalt supposed.

He really needed to stop touching things.

"Hawke!" By the look of Fenris's face, jaw locked, pale fury in the furrow of his brow offset by the worried wrinkle to his eyes, Tybalt was going to guess the elf felt the same way.

"I'm all-Ah!" Tybalt jerked where he hang.

"What happened?" Fenris demanded below him.

Tybalt gritted his teeth together and tried to breathe through what felt like fire wrapping around his ankles instead of rope. "I think the rope's enchanted somehow," he wheezed out. "It's burning!"

"It doesn't look like it's on fire," Isabela weighed in.

"It feels like it!" Tybalt yelped. "Merrill, please, get me down from here." He forced calm into his words that he didn't feel. 

He pressed a hand against his chest. Calm. Calm. Everything would be fine. Focus on Fenris, he told himself. As long as he looked at Fenris, he had something good to hold on to.

Fenris looked down, turning his head to Isabela and Merrill. Between the blood rushing to his head and trying to fight off what he could only describe as an impending anxiety attack, Tybalt couldn't make out the words. The worst thing about this, he thought while breathing harshly through the pain, was how damned helpless he was.

They moved, Isabela and Fenris standing right beneath him and Merrill walking a few feet away from them. He couldn't see her like this, but he heard the tell tale sound of her drawing her blade and a hiss when she must have drawn her own blood.

Great.

Blood magic.

Because blood magic always made things better.

He heard a crack above him. A little pebble hit his cheek as he wrenched himself to get a glance at what was happening. Just as the ceiling, and the marks for the spell holding him that were carved into it , collapsed, Tybalt came falling down in a rain of dirt and grass and rocks. He plummeted right into Isabela and Fenris, taking them down with him.

"Are you okay?" Merrill asked, tracking her way through the debris to the three of them.

"Can we just," Tybalt said with a defeated groan, "Agree to climb up that tree, get out of here and never speak of this place ever again?"

No one argued against the suggestion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at the amazing [art](http://graciessocksdrawer.tumblr.com/post/138370064249/7f40-commission-for-graciessocksdrawer-of) I commissioned. It's Tybalt, for anyone who's curious what he looks like.


	16. A good end to a bad day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fluffy sequel to the last chapter (Tybalt's No Good Bad Day).

Aaaah. This was exactly what Tybalt needed after the day he'd had. Wonderful, hot water and soap. Lots of soap. He had mud and spider goop in places that he didn't even want to think about. He would have lived a perfectly happy, fulfilled life without knowing what it would feel like to have stuff congealing there.

That was all over now, though. Instead, he sank into a large tub that Bodahn had filled with hot water and kept going until he was chin deep. His knees formed little brown islands in the soapy water. He twisted one of the beads on his wrist around and around, letting out a pleased sigh.

"If you keep making noises like that, I will start to worry whether I should be jealous of that tub."

Tybalt yelped and flailed around at the sound of Fenris's amused rumble. Water sloshed over the edge. The elf stood against the wall. No, not just standing. He was lounging, leaning lazily against the stone with his eyes half lidded and fixed on Hawke.

Tybalt opened his mouth to object against any accusations and point out that cheating on Fenris with an inanimate object seemed rather ineffective, before it clicked. Ah. Right. Joking. He sank back into the water. "I'm sorry Fenris. It's over. The tub and I are very happy. We're going to sneak onto a ship and elope in Denerim. We'll be very happy and have many little buckets for children."

"You hate ships," Fenris drawls, slowly drawing closer to the bath tub.

Tybalt waved a determined hand over the edge of the tub. "I will make sacrifices for love!"

Fenris snorted, a choked little sound with a slight tremor at the edges of his lips but Tybalt knew. Oh, how he knew. Fenris was trying to contain his amusement and that just wouldn't do. That wouldn't do at all. He was still dressed as well, save for the spiky armour bits, and that would do even less.

The mage watched him, carefully waiting and calculating. Wait for it. Wait. Waaaaait... There! He snapped out of the water, wrapped his arms around the elf and dragged him into the bath. Even more water spilled over the edge. If he kept this up, he'd be better off taking his bath on the floor.

"HAWKE!" Fenris squawked, flailing his arms around for a second. Tybalt narrowly avoided an elbow to the eye.

"I thought you couldn't wait to get me into a bath?" Tybalt sank neck deep into the water again.

"I would have joined you eventually!"

"Would've taken too long," Tybalt mumbled against the back of Fenris's neck.

"I was only going to undress."

"Too long." He insisted.

Fenris chuckled, a comforting sound filled with warmth. "You are hopeless."

"A spider exploded on me," Tybalt argued. "I fell into a temple. I dangled upside down from a magical burning rope. Being a little hopeless is allowed."

Fenris shook his head. Wet strands of white hair slapped Tybalt's face, drawing a sneeze from him. "Talking about that, you need to stop touching things."

"You like it when I touch things," Tybalt pointed out. As if to prove his point, he worked his fingers under Fenris's shirt, easing them over the sides, up to Fenris's ribs, smoothing his thumbs over skin and across the scars. Tybalt felt a Fenris shiver and smiled against the back of his neck.

"That- ah- you play dirty," Fenris accused him.

"You like that too," Tybalt murmured.

"That- Hawke! Would you be serious?"

Tybalt stopped tracing his fingers over Fenris's skin. "It was interesting."

"All the more reason for you to stay away from it." Fenris settled back against Tybalt's chest. Tybalt finding something interesting never ended well. It was as much a certainty as birth and death.

"It was very shiny," Tybalt added in a feeble attempt at defending his poor life decisions.

"Pristine objects in long abandoned buildings do not bode well. Your magpie tendencies will be the death of me one of these days," Fenris grumbled.

Tybalt frowned. "Don't you mean it'll kill me?"

"No."

A beat of silence and then Tybalt's voice, quietly. "Ah." He bit his bottom lip for a second. "Are we adding that to the rule where I'm not allowed to tackle spiders any more?"

"Varric is making a list," Fenris said. "I believe the title will be The Care and feeding of Your Wayward Hawke."

Tybalt groaned. "Varric exaggerates." He shifted, slipping a little further under the water and nuzzled the back of Fenris's neck again. The tip of his nose brushed over the markings. After the day he'd had, being here with Fenris in the peace and quiet and warmth was just what he needed. Tybalt smiled, beginning to work his hands under Fenris's shirts. Soaked the elf might be, but he was still distinctly overdressed. Oh well, that, Tybalt could quite easily fix.


	17. Oh.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They got what they never thought they would: they got to grow old together. (Warning for character death)

Fenris wakes to a cold autumn morning in their little cottage. His joints ache, feel stiff when he stretches out, but such is the case every morning now. Years of fighting and injuries caught up to them decades ago. Tybalt's once dark hair nearly matches his own now. The bit he still has, at least.

They've grown older together than Fenris ever imagined possible.

He turns over. "Tybalt," he murmurs. The mage never learned to like mornings. Fenris sleepily reaches out to nudge him awake. His fingertips brush cold skin, despite the blankets piled on top of him.

Fenris's breath shudders to a brief, aching halt.

"Tybalt?" he tries again, shaking the other man now.

No response. Tybalt lies completely silent. His chest doesn't rise any more.

"Oh." Fenris sits up and reaches with trembling, wrinkled fingers to touch Tybalt's throat in search for a heartbeat, breath, anything. There's nothing. "Oh." His heart shatters in the sound. He swallows, mouth suddenly going dry while he feels hot tears spill down his cheeks.

Root, one of Yarrow's many descendants, huffs and whines at the bottom of the bed, catching on that something isn't right. Fenris pays her no attention. He can't take his eyes off of Tybalt, his fingers curled around the man's arms.

He's gone, Fenris realizes. They've had decades together, more than they could ever have hoped for, but he finds himself wishing for just few more days. They will never have those. They won't be able to sit on the bench and watch the sunsets any more. He won't hear Tybalt quietly encouraging newly planted seeds, or hear him laugh while Fenris tries to chase that damned goat from their little patch of land. Tybalt won't surprise him with a kiss or a hug ever again. The realization sits like a bitter stone in his chest.

Fenris rubs a hand over his face, trying to brush his tears away in a futile effort. They keep on spilling. He leans forward, pressing his lips to Tybalt's forehead, then swallows and turns to Root. The young mabari has her head on the bed and watches him with too intelligent, mournful eyes. "Go get Bethany, Root," he ordered the young Mabari.

There were so many things to do now, but Fenris couldn't even fathom getting out of bed and leaving Tybalt. Bethany would know what to do. The young midwife would do right. Tybalt is- was a second father to her. He'd been the one who helped her mother deliver her. He was the one who offered Bethany's mother her name.

Fenris brushes strands of white out of Tybalt's face. The deep grooves in his face have eased. "You always have to- to plunge in first, don't you?" he asks, rough voice catching on the grief in his throat. "Always going where I can't follow." Not yet, anyway. Tybalt will scold him if he dares to show up where the mage now is before his time.

Bethany arrives swiftly, following Root, and finds Fenris still sitting on the bed and holding Tybalt's hand. She pauses for a second, allowing the wave of hurt and grief to wash over her before she takes action. 

Tybalt is cremated the next day. Tybalt wouldn't have wanted to wait longer, Fenris explains to Bethany. They have seen too many reanimated corpses to want their bodies left to linger longer than absolutely necessary. Fenris buries Tybalt's ashes at the foot of the old oak tree growing at the edge of their property.

Bethany offers Fenris a room in her home a few days later, but he refuses. His twitch of a bitter-sweet smile isn't even skindeep.

"I am not alone. Tybalt is never far from me," he answers. Bethany doesn't know what to make of that answer, but makes it a point to drop by every day, no matter what the weather. Fenris grumbles when she visits, but makes her tea, talks with her about their past, stories of Kirkwall they never shared with anyone else before. He tells her the stories Tybalt told him about the Bethany she was named after.

She finds Fenris one early morning the very next spring. He sits slumped against the oak tree's trunk, Root with her head in his lap. His eyes closed, head lolling forward and no life left in him. Root spots Bethany, gives a sad little whine.

She kneels by Fenris's side, touches his cold hand. "You'll be missed," she whispers, "Say hello to Tybalt for me."


	18. Out of synch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pre-Fenhawke. The world gets too bright, sharp, fast and leaves Tybalt scrambling to catch up.

Tybalt doesn't know if something in his head has settled as he has grown beyond the confusing mess of his teenage years or if he's learned how to handle himself. He knows what kind of situations set his skin into a crawling, tight mess with racing heart and lungs fighting for even a sigh of air. Sometimes, he can feel it coming. Sometimes, he can fight it in the now and pay the price later.

And the other times? It just hits him out of nowhere and there's no chance of holding his ground against the raw panic that overtakes him.

The sounds he's been so carefully ignoring, the smells, the way even the air tastes of old ale, all come rushing forth. A serving girl brushes against his back and Tybalt twitches. His knuckles turn white as his fingers dig into the table. A cold, heavy stone sinks in his chest as he drops out of synch with the world around him. Everything inside his skin slows down to a crawl, stammers, gets stuck in thick molasses while everything beyond the border of his body gets faster and louder and brighter until it burns.

Tybalt hears words, but they're blurred and twisted, all meaning squeezed out of them and leaving him with thinly stretched husks.

He's not dying. He knows this despite the pain in his chest. He's learned it from experience. His shoulders hunch forward; his head bows. Salt and red fill his mouth before he even realizes that he's biting his own cheeks to keep a rattling whine from clawing up through his throat and spilling into the air with his blood.

Carver's voice is closest, hand too heavy on Tybalt's shoulder. Tybalt feels himself being weighed down even further, slowing even more. What if he stops entirely? Will he ever catch back up? Will he ever start moving again? His breath stutters out, jagged sounds whisper soft against ever forced breath. His eyes snap around, expressions he can't make sense of swim around him. White markings on a hand draw his attention, just long enough to know Fenris is ready to draw a weapon.

Carver gets louder, but further removed, his hand flinging at the door and effectively ejecting even Varric from his own room in the Hanged Man until it's just him and Tybalt. Until it's just Carver trying to immitate the low hum of chatter their father so often used to talk Tybalt through these attack.

***

Tybalt stays away from the Hanged Man after that. He's good at convincing himself that it's not an active choice. It's not like he's avoiding his friends. It's not as if he doesn't want to see them. He's just busy. Yes. That's it. He just has stuff to do. Stuff and things that just happen to take him out of Kirkwall or at the very least keep him away from the Hanged Man, the alienage and, well, wherever else their little ragtag group spends their time. It's all purely coincidental that that means that he hasn't seen or spoken to anyone other than Carver and Aveline.

Yes. Absolutely. And maybe if he repeats it often enough, even he will start to believe it.

He's found a reason – not an excuse, _a reason_ thank you very much – to travel to his hidden patch of land on the Wounded Coast with an armful growing, young herbs. They need more ground than what he can provide in the pots in Gamlen's house.

Not to mention that he doesn't entirely trust Gamlen to not try and either sell what Tybalt has so painstakingly grown or toss the plants out with the trash.

Tybalt plants them in precise rows, even spaces between each of the elfroots. It's more of a science than a hobby, he thinks at times. The space has to be exactly right for them to not smother each other but for him to get maximum yield from the patch of land and-

"Do you plan to returning to the Hanged man at some point within this age or should we move here?"

Tybalt flails, flinging the clump of dirt he's holding at the person who spoke. He reaches for his staff and turns to face-

 _"Fenris?"_ Tybalt doesn't squeak, but it's a close enough thing. He's seen Fenris with blood and filth on his face, but never with potting soil and a few bedraggled leaves hanging over his hair.

Crap.

Fenris picks a leaf from his ear, holds it up for a second of inspection before tossing it to the side. "As far as defence tactics go, I cannot recommend this one."

Tybalt blinks at him for a second. How can he- What is he- "Why are you here?" he asks. His mouth feels dry, his tongue fumbles over the syllables as he starts to hear blood rushing through his ears. His gaze abruptly flicks to the rocks off to Fenris's left. He doesn't want to see the change. He doesn't want to see how Fenris now looks differently at him, just like the rest undoubtedly will.

How can he expect them to follow him when they've seen him break down because someone unexpectedly brushed against him?

"We were... worried. Carver was less than forthcoming about what happened."

"So what?" Tybalt's fingernails dig into his palms. "You drew the short straw?" He tries to draw it out like a joke, but the tremor betrays his fear.

"No. In fact, I volunteered."

That draws Tybalt's attention away from the rocks, darting back at Fenris who stands there, dirt on his face and hands at his sides. He's frowning, but Tybalt can't make out the signs of pity, of someone looking at him and no longer seeing an adult capable of making his own decisions. He's seen those looks often enough to have them catalogued in his mind. They're not there.

"You were about to draw your sword," Tybalt says. His fingers wring together, wrap around themselves. "Did you think I was..." Turning into an abomination? Possessed? So many options that he can't decide which one to say out loud first.

Fenris looks down, scrapes his throat. His toes twitch against the ground. "I acted on experience, but I was mistaken. My apologies."

Tybalt's breath shudders. What can he say to that? He's a mage with fire at his fingertips. The world says that he is dangerous for that on its own. So what's to say about a mage like him? And Fenris, who experienced that worst mages have to offer, what does he think of Tybalt now?

"Do you wish to talk about it?" Fenris asks.

"I don't... I don't know, really." Tybalt gives a rueful smile, eyes on the ground in front of Fenris's toes, before sighing and sitting down with his back against the rocks that shelter the area. "It just gets busy sometimes, you know? In my head. It's- it's difficult to explain." He rakes a hand through his hair, making it stand up at odd angles. His fingers catch on a tangle and Tybalt winces.

It's quiet for a moment, before Fenris sits down next to him. "You do not have to explain if you do not wish to," he says, glancing sideways at Tybalt.

A brief flash of a smile flits over Tybalt's face. It only feels a little strained at the corners. "Will you still trust me in a fight?" he asks. His fingers fidget over the edge of his shirt. The rock's uneven surface presses against his back.

Fenris doesn't even hesitate. "I will. You are who you are, Hawke and what I've seen tells me that you are a good man."

Tybalt's shoulders relax for the first time in days, the last of the tension leaks from his smile and he closes his eyes. That's all he wants, in the end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look what the amazing insainity drew: [Tybalt the way they imagined him](http://saiscribbles.tumblr.com/post/138436244874/i-threatened-to-sketch-how-i-had-been-picturing) <3 I love it, it's great!


	19. Tiptoes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fluff without plot with a smattering of feels at night. (I'm sick, I wanted fluff, plot was beyond me)

Fenris wakes to an empty bed. He stretches out his hand, finds warmth lingering between the sheets still. He hears Yarrow's breathing from the floor in front of the bed. The dog's sneaked in again. He briefly considers getting up to look where Tybalt is, but experience predicts that Hawke has either slipped out for a glass of water or is checking the estate for possible security risks.

Yarrow wouldn't be in the room if it anything else had drawn Hawke from his side in the dead of night.

Fenris draws the blankets up closer, drifting off to a half slumber in the comfort of their bed until the door creaks. Tybalt enters, tiptoeing through the room. Fenris watches him through eyes opened to barely a sliver, the way he moves slowly and make as little noise as possible. He doesn't come to bed right away, pausing instead at the window and looking outside. His frown creases lines in his face that hadn't been there when they'd first met all those years ago. The moonlight hits jagged, uneven lines, scars that hadn't been there back then either.

He counts the seconds Hawke stand at the window, his eyes sweeping the Hightown streets for anything that could pose a thread. He sees the way Tybalt's fingers dig into the window sill, his shoulders a tense line and drawn up.

He must have dreamed of Leandra again.

Fenris props himself up on his elbows. "Tybalt," he says, his voice dragging with the last remnants of sleep, "Come back to bed."

Tybalt whirls around on his heels in a flail of limbs and tangled hair, his blue eyes wide and startled. He bounces up to his toes again. Moonlight filters through the sides of the too large night shirt. "I didn't mean to wake you. I- uh- I heard something. Outside." He gestures at the window's general direction.

There's always something out there, they both know it. The Champion is always watched. There are always people waiting for Tybalt to stumble. It wears on him, Fenris sees it in the circles under Tybalt's eyes and the far too early grey creeping in at his temples. Fenris will fight tooth and nail before he lets a shred of that vicious mess invade the last sanctuaries Tybalt has left. He knows it and Tybalt does so too.

"Did you find anything?" Fenris asks.

Tybalt shakes his head, bouncing in place. His fingers twist together.

"Come back to bed," Fenris repeats. "Before the dog decides to steal your spot."

That would not be the first time for Fenris waking up with the giant dog squirmed in between the two of them. It gives a new meaning to morning breath.

Tybalt stands still for another second before he propels forward. The first step is heavy, as if walking away from the window is the hardest thing he can do, but he's back in bed , squirming under the blankets and-

"GAH!"

Tybalt jerks back, just in time to avoid a reflexive elbow hitting him in the side. "What the-"

"Your feet are cold," Fenris objects, tugging his legs safely away from the icicles masquerading as Tybalt's toes.

Tybalt blinks at him, all affronted innocence. "They are not!"

"They feel as if you figured out how to turn a cone of cold into _socks_."

"Why would I want to do that? That doesn't sound comfortable at all. And very cold." Tybalt blinks at him.

Grumbling, Fenris turns over until he faces Tybalt. "Now imagine how it feels to get that shoved against your very warm, comfortable, unsuspecting legs."

Tybalt tugs his legs up, just enough to press his toes against Fenris's feet. He's warmer now, but Fenris still jerks. Not a fan of cold. He growls. "Now you're doing it on purpose."

"I would never!" Tybalt blinks, feigning innocence, but his lips and eyes twitch to smile and he wriggles his toes.

Fenris shoves at Tybalt, but there's no real force behind it. Tybalt gives a playful push back. Not about to let that go unanswered, Fenris twists with Tybalt, turning until he's on top and looking down at the mage. He brushes a few strands of Tybalt's hair away from his forehead, fingertips lingering for a second on a scar right above his left eyebrow. For once, not something done by an attacker, unless one counts stray low ceilings.

Tybalt's eyes narrow. Fenris gets no further warning. The human bucks up, knocking Fenris off balance. Before he even knows what's going on, his back hits the mattress and Tybalt's body covers his. The blankets are halfway shoved down. Tybalt's nightshirt rides up, leaving his back exposed to Fenris's touch. His fingers trace aimless patterns, feels Tybalt's skin ripple under his touch.

The rumble of a barely concealed laugh bubbles up from deep within Fenris's chest. Laughter comes more easily these days, especially when it comes to Hawke. Even more so when they're like this, pushing and trying to keep a straight face while all they want to do is laugh. His eyes settle on Tybalt's lips. For a fraction of a second, he falls silent.

He wants a lifetime of this. He wants years and years of Tybalt picking over words, his cold toes, sharing and bed and of Tybalt grinning like he won a prize whenever one of his awful jokes draws a laugh from Fenris.

Everything.

"Fenris? Is everything all right?"

Tugging Tybalt down, Fenris whispers against Tybalt's lips. "Could not be better."


	20. Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tybalt goes in search of Fenris after he hasn’t seen him for a few days. What he finds is a huddle of misery, fever and sneezing. (Set during Act II)

Tybalt walks into Fenris's mansion with his hand on his staff and a spell ready on his lips. He doesn't expect Fenris to attack him but, well, there are still bits and pieces of corpses lingering in the corners, the parts vermin haven't made off with anyway and it's Thursday. Stuff comes back to life, or something vaguely resembling life, on Thursdays. Or was that Tuesdays? No. Evil blood sacrifices have dibs on Tuesday.

"Fenris?" Tybalt calls, looking around. He hears something skitter around. That had better be a rat, a great big fat fluffy rat and not a lonely skeletal hand scraping around in search of a handless arm. It had been fun on- no, wait, even that time it hadn't been fun, just mildly horrifying. Honestly, his life: a collection of bones held only together by twisted magic and sheer determination crawling around on the floor was only 'mildly horrifying'. Whatever the sound was, it faded back into silence.

"Fenris?" Tybalt tries again.

A sneeze explodes from a room up the stairs. Tybalt jumps and a halfway cast fireball fizzles out from his fingertips. He's pretty sure that Yarrow's huff can only be described as smug. Mabaris are too smart for their own good.

Right then. That explains why he hasn't seen Fenris out and about the last few days. Tybalt's shoulders sag, relaxing, his hand eases away from the staff and he bounds up the stairs two steps at a time with Yarrow on his heels up to the room he heard the sound come from. He bounces to a halt at the door opening, biting back a smile. Bleary eyes, a red nose and the most miserable of miserable glares greet him from amidst a pile of blankets. He recognizes at least two from the piles his mother has carried out on occasion. He hadn't realized that at the time.

"What are you doing here?" Fenris asks. His voice cracks like dried wood on every other syllable. He doubles over, shaking weakly with coughs that wrack his frame.

"Hadn't seen you in a while, was-" Tybalt frowns. Worried wasn't the word he was going for, but how can he say 'wanted to make sure we haven't gone back to avoiding each other' because that touches back to that night and that still hurts.

Fenris huffs, clutching the blankets even tighter around himself. His eyes are too bright and his skin has gone a pasty pale except for the all too wrong fevered flush. "I'm fine," he insists.

"You don't look fine."

"I'm f-" Fenris breaks into a coughing fit. He heaves for breath even as Hawke walks into the room and settles on his left, Yarrow gives a little whine and presses against Fenris's right. "Fine. I might have caught a cold."

Tybalt arches his eyebrows at the elf. "Might have?"

"Possibly."

Tybalt remembers Carver, wavering about on his feet, boiling hot to the touch and still insisting that he wasn't ill. Perhaps it's a warrior thing? Except he distinctly remembers his father doing the same thing and he suspects that his mother might have a thing or two to say about Tybalt's on denial of reality in relation to his health. He darts his hand out, quickly pressing the back to Fenris's sweatdamp forehead – lyrium dots tingle. He feels boiling hot to the touch. "You have the flu. I can go get An-"

"No!" The vehemence in Fenris's voice has Tybalt rocking back. He blinks, confused.

"But I was just-"

Fenris shakes his head for a short moment, then stops and sways where he sits. "Before- Danarius had methods whenever I showed signs of falling ill."

Ah. Right. Tybalt nods, remains quiet for a second in case more information is volunteered. He doesn't have to be a genius on social interaction to know how painful that subject is. He doesn't want to pry and the line between talking and that is too thin for him to navigate on a good day. If Fenris wants to talk, he'll talk. Tybalt has to trust him with that. "All right," he says instead, nudging Fenris slightly before climbing back to his feet. "Do you want to come with me?"

"Hawke?" Hesitation dances through the elf's voice.

"Well, if I can't get Anders to try his healing on you-" Tybalt knows some healing, but that's more suited to arrows poking from flesh and deep gashes and burns "-I'd at least like it if you did the sick thing at my place. Where we have beds. And people who know how to make chicken soup. And my herb collection within arm's reach."

One of Fenris's hands sneak out of the blankets, catch Tybalt by his robes. "You don't have to do this." He blinks up with watery, red rimmed eyes and runny nose, and a look of confusion on his face. "Not after-"

Tybalt crouches down in front of Fenris, covers the elf's hands with his own. "I know I fumble things and- and I don't know how to deal with things, but... Fenris, you were my friend before we became anything else and I'd like to think that no matter what happens between us, the friends part will last and friends look after each other, right?" Like how Varric looks after Anders and Merrill. He's only had his family before Kirkwall. He's still piecing things together that come with being friends, but he's figured this much out already.

Fenris is his friend, at the beginning and the end and all that comes in between.

"Then... I think your place would be preferable."

Between Tybalt and Yarrow, they manage to get a blanket swathed Fenris to the estate. The next week later, when Tybalt insists that he's fine and he can get out of bed as soon as the world stops acting as if it's a ship, Fenris brings chicken soup to his room and smirks while Anders tries to convince Tybalt to take his medicine. Tybalt, it turns out, might just be the world's sulkiest patient.


	21. Call me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt fill for “Call Me: one character asking for another [be it at the brink of death/in a battlefield/knocking on the front door wounded, feel free to specify.]"
> 
> Tybalt sacrificed himself in the Fade during Inquisition. No one will stand for that, but time does strange things in the Fade.

Fenris hates the Fade, he decides, the second they enter it. It's wet, filled with demons and most of all: it holds Hawke. It may have killed Hawke in the time it took them to find a way into the Fade, but between Merill and Anders nothing will keep them from getting into the fade and get Tybalt.

Nothing.

They will find Tybalt, drag him back out and then he will have Words with the mage about his self-sacrificial tendencies. A lot of Words. Mostly centring around 'never again, never'. He will get a chance for that because Tybalt is alive.

He will not permit any other option. Tybalt is alive and probably trying to see if there are plants in the Fade and if he can take some with him. If Fenris wills it hard enough, it will be. He has to keep believing that with every step he takes in this damned place.

It doesn't change the fact that the demons throwing themselves were all shambling corpses with glazed over versions of Tybalt's blue eyes, his dark skin mottled and peeling and Fenris's name like a death groan spilling from their slack mouths. He doesn't think about that.

Carver's hand falls heavy on his shoulder. "We'll find him, Fenris," the Grey Warden tells him, but the tremor in his voice lacks conviction. Neither of them want Carver to be the last Hawke standing.

Fenris shrugs the hand off, eyes sharp on their surroundings. There haven't been demons in a while. The last they'd encountered a Pride demon a few hours ago. It's too quiet. Something has to come soon enough.

"He must be nearby," Justice says, voice booming in a way that makes Fenris wants to snap at him to shut up. They don't need more attention drawn to them. They can't afford to waste time fighting more demons that they could spend tracking Hawke down.

To their left, Merrill squeaks. "He's here! Look! That's Hawke's work, isn't it?" She bounces nervously, hands clasped together, eyes fixed on the scattered, still smouldering remains of what looks like a terror demon. There's only part of an arm, a jaw and a leg left of it.

Tybalt always does like using fireballs when he can.

Fenris exchanges a look with Carver and nods, more desperate than certain. It has to be Hawke instead of a rage demon. Justice, thankfully, remains quiet on the subject.

"Another!" Fenris hastens his step. Remains of another creature that he can't identify. His heart skips up to his throat and he has to close his eyes for a moment, dizzy with hope rushing back. If this is Tybalt, then he might yet be within their reach. They might be able to find him and get him back to safety.

It's a trail, as if someone carved their way through demons.

Tybalt, Fenris's mind sings, though his heart clenches with fear all the same. They might have tracks to follow, but as long as they don't find him, there is still the threat of being _too late_.

"It's Hawke. He has to be. He'll be fine, right, Carver?" Merrill asks, her voice jittering over high tones, making every sentence sound like a question.

"Of course it is. My brother's too stubborn to let this place get the better of him." At least Carver tries to sound convinced.

It's Justice, in the end, whose head snaps up first while Fenris's eyes follow the trail of signs that Tybalt has been here. "There is a battle not far from here," Justice says before he starts to run, the blue cracks on Anders's skin shining even brighter. They run, fuelled by wildly flaring hope and fumes more than anything, passing corpses of Gibbering Horrors. They haven't paused once since they'd punched through the Fade rift.

There he is. Something isn't right, even from this distance, but Fenris doesn't stall, flying forward. He can fix whatever is wrong as long as Tybalt is alive. As long as they get him out of the Fade. The mage is fighting three Despair demons, stumbling as ice hits him, but not going down. He doesn't even shout, twirling his staff with savage precision sending a flame at one of the demons and slicing the blade on the staff at the other, which barely dodges.

"Hawke!" Fenris calls out, his voice cracking on the syllable, pushing a last spurt, drawing his sword to bring it down on the demon that had just avoided Tybalt's staff. Carver is right by his side, going for the other demon. Merrill shouts, sending a stone fist while Justice rips through the last one.

Fenris turns, breathing heavy. He blinks against the burning in his eyes and takes a step towards Tybalt. He needs to touch, make sure the mage is there and real and very much alive. To convince himself that this is not some cruel trick.

Tybalt's face pulls into a snarl, his eyes bright blue an cold like shards of glass in sharp contrast to the bruised and muddied skin. His hair looks so much longer than the last time Fenris saw, matted and tangled. His clothing has turned to ripped and smudged remains, barely holding together as it is.

His wrist looks bare without his beads.

"Don't!" Tybalt snarls. His voice is flat and hard like his eyes. Like he doesn't _know_ them.

Fenris's words freeze in his throat.

"Hawke, it's us!" Merril tries, taking a step forward only to be jerked back right in time by Justice to avoid an electric shock.

"Brother-"

"Don't call me that, _demon_." He spits the word like poison. "You might have found a new trick, but I won't fall for it." Tybalt twirls the staff, but it's sluggish and tired. He sways on his feet.

"It's us, please, Hawke." Merril's voice breaks in her pleading.

Tybalt barks a harsh, humourless laugh. "Oh really? They never came for me in all these years, how could they find a way in now?"

Years.

"Time is a different matter within the Fade," Justice says, as if it helps.

Fenris swallows, ignores the feeling of tears tracking down his face. Having Hawke look at him as if he's an enemy- he can't bear it. He slowly puts his sword down on the ground and straightens with his hands up, palms facing Tybalt. He takes on careful step forward.

Carver tenses next to him, but doesn't speak or move.

"Hawke," Fenris says, trying to even his tone though forcing the words past the rock lodged in his throat is enough of an effort as it is. "I am no demon. I promise. We came for you." _Please believe. Please, if there is anything good left in the world, **believe** me._

The staff twirling stops. Tybalt blinks, confusion and exhaustion warring on his face. Blood pours from a fresh cut on his forehead.

"We came as soon as we could," Fenris says, slowly walking closer. "It took us little more than a week."

He searches Tybalt's face, desperate for any sign that the mage believes him.

"A- a week?" Tybalt fumbles with the word, staff clattering from numb fingers.

Fenris crosses the last few feet between them in a second, flinging himself at the mage. He holds on tighter than he ever thought he could. For an achingly long moment, Tybalt stands frozen but Fenris refuses to let go. Not now. Not after all this.

"We've come to take you home," he whispers, hiding his face against Tybalt's shoulder. "Please come home."

Tybalts arms come up, circle around Fenris. His chest shudders with a hopeful sob. "Thank you. Thank you oh thank you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if this is canon for my playthrough since I've never brought Tybalt to Inquisition. Also... uhm... this is what happens when people leave me feelsy prompts. THINGS HAPPEN. Sorry, not sorry?


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